[MD] Ironistic Metaphysics

[Ian Glendinning]

So, you're looking for a meta-metaphysics Steve ?
Ian

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Steve Peterson<peterson.steve at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi DMB,
>
> I feel like I've done a disservice to Rorty for not explaining more about
> what I'm getting at with these questions, but I was hoping that others could
> upack Rorty's ironism better than I could.
>
> The issue I wanted to get to is this: If you talk to a materialist, she can
> give you a good account of reality based on her materialist assumptions of a
> reality based on substance. Same thing if you talk to an idealist who bases
> reality on the subjective self, or if you talk to Pirsig who bases his
> metaphysics on Quality, or Heidegger on Being, or Ham on Essence etc. You
> could have the same sorts of conversations with Taoists or Buddhists or
> Christians and others who all have very different fundamental assumptions
> about the nature of reality. You will find that all these systems
> demonstrate valid chains of reasoning within the frameworks that they have
> set up. The truth is that self-consistent rationally sound metaphysical
> systems are a dime a dozen, so we shouldn't be too impressed that the fact
> that they are self-consistent and rationally sound. Aquinas's dictum "when
> you reach a contradiction, make a distinction" tells us exactly how easy it
> is to ensure that your system is self-consistent.
>
> What we would need to adopt any of these systems and what no one has ever
> invented is a method that stands outside of metaphysics that tells us how to
> choose between such systems. I think the recognition of the shortcomings of
> the project of creating a metaphysical system is what Rorty means by
> ironism. To be ironist about a metaphysical system is to use it for whatever
> purposes it is useful for without thinking of it as closer to the one true
> account of the way things really are than any other since the ironist when
> it comes to metaphysics doesn't think of metaphysics as the project of
> getting past some Kantian barrier between language and reality as it really
> is--that we can get more or less in touch with reality by coming up with the
> right sentences to describe reality and holding them to be true.
>
> So my question about whether Pirsig is an ironist is concerned with whether
> Pirsig sees the MOQ getting us in touch with reality as it really is...Or
> something like that. I'm still hoping that Matt or someone will jump in and
> tell me what it is I want to ask.
>
> Best,
> Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2009, at 11:09 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
>>
>> Hey Steve and y'all:
>> I remember being perplexed by this sort of talk when Matt used to talk
>> like that. What I still don't quite understand is what Rorty means by "final
>> vocabulary" or "choice between vocabularies". What is a metavocabulary and
>> how can one be neutral or universal? I mean, this definition of an "ironist"
>> depends entirely on the meaning of such terms but no explanations or
>> definitions of them are supplied.
>>
>> Matt? Steve? Can you tell me what this talk about "vocabulary" means?
>>
>> Without that, he just seems to be saying that an "ironist" is a person who
>> is uncertain of her own beliefs and that this uncertainty is a very
>> sophisticated sort of doubt. It's like he's trying to make it sound cool.
>> When such irony is compared to the certainty of fanatics and ideologues, I
>> suppose it is pretty cool. Is he just saying that an ironist is like
>> Socrates; she's the wisest of them all because she knows that she doesn't
>> know anything?
>>
>>
>> But I also suppose (and hope) Rorty is saying something more interesting
>> than that. Otherwise, why use the fancy jargon? Otherwise, why provide a
>> definition that needs a whole series of other definitions? I would hope his
>> point his worth the work it takes to get that point. I hope he's not just
>> repeated that Socratic idea of wisdom, cause there sure are easier and more
>> elegant ways to say that.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
>>> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 18:11:58 -0400
>>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>>> Subject: [MD]  Ironistic Metaphysics
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> What is metaphysics? Does everyone have a metaphysics? Or can people
>>> get by without being metaphysicians?
>>>
>>> Rorty:
>>> "I shall define an "ironist" as someone who fulfills three
>>> conditions: (1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final
>>> vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by
>>> other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books
>>> she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her
>>> present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
>>> (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not
>>> think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it
>>> is in touch with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to
>>> philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither
>>> within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to
>>> fight one's way past appearances to the real, but simply by playing
>>> the new off against the old."
>>>
>>> Is Pirsig an ironist?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Steve
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